


How Fast You Run

by Churbooseanon



Series: RVB 60 Minute Challenge [5]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-06
Updated: 2015-06-06
Packaged: 2018-04-03 02:54:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4083919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Churbooseanon/pseuds/Churbooseanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carolina was never content with the mods assigned to her in the program. They weren't suited to her. But she'll use them to win anyway. </p><p>Until she discovered that even speed isn't enough in the high stakes game they're all playing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Fast You Run

**Author's Note:**

> Pretty much Freelancers dying when they're supposed to. 
> 
> For RVB in 60 Minutes Challenge for 5/4/2015: They couldn't have died at a worse time.

When they assign the experimental armor modifications to the members of Project Freelancer, Carolina has to wonder what in the world prompted her assignment.

Wyoming is given an experimental ‘time distortion’ unit. Supposedly it is supposed to speed the mental functions to a degree that would allow for the user to make complex, well thought out decisions in a greater speed than the human body allowed for. As a leader of a tactical team Carolina has to think that the unit would be ideal for the sometimes split second decisions that were thrust upon her in the field. For those times when things went completely wrong, having the most reasoned escape plan possible seems like the best choice, doesn’t it? And then there are all the theoretical applications to it, which Carolina almost wants to salivate over the potential of. But no, the sniper is apparently best suited to the unit, and Carolina will not argue for a moment that the way he thinks isn’t suited to the potential being offered him. 

What then about the holographic projection unit? To be able to literally be in two places at once, at least as far as the enemy might believe, surely that has some value, does it not? As their best fighter, as the one that makes those split-second decisions that a holographic unit might require fast already, could it not be helpful? Already she’s good in a fight, but with this she could be a master of misdirection. But, well, she supposes she can understand the rationale of passing the mod to Connie. Connie is also fast, but her style, unlike Carolina’s, is heavily based in evasion and coming at weak points. The distractions could not only help her defensively, but make her an offensive weapon to be reckoned with. And is Project Freelancer not supposed to be an attempt to turn regular ‘great’ soldiers into combatants on par with if not superior to the longer to develop (and in far fewer numbers) SPARTAN program? 

Truth be told she doesn’t lust after the healing unit that York gets for a single second. Carolina doesn’t enter fights with the intention of being injured. In fact she finds the idea that you can accept such a thing as admitting weakness? No, she doesn’t want a healing unit, and she can even understand giving it to York, considering how often her second seems to get himself into trouble. Nor can she find herself envying Maine’s strength mods. His fighting is more easily compensated for by the extra strength, and he is the team heavy for a reason. Extra strength would make her, well, less suited to the way she fought. How quickly could she adapt to that added force, how likely was it that she might throw herself off with her own unrealized strength? No, the adjustment curve for that is just too much. 

They give the twins a strange combination. Advanced motion tracking systems that suit South’s stealth specialty and North’s long term sniping and surveillance. But come on, Carolina is an all purpose team member. She gets into places that other people can’t, takes on forces others wouldn’t consider, and surely it would be nice to know earlier than there was a larger number of enemy forces coming in than she expected, wouldn’t it? Let her see through walls and pick out enemy deployments to make her breaching more effective? Carolina can get on board with that. 

Failing that why can’t she find one of those bubble shields in her possession? The ability to throw that down with a grenade inside and a handful of enemies with it? Or what about turning it into a brawling area to capture enemies in forced combat? Imagine how easy it would be to subdue a force you are pursuing if you can just drop a curtain force field down on them and neither of you could get out until one of you went down? It’s genius and Carolina spends days thinking about the combat applications, regardless of what happens to Utah. 

Then there is Wash. For the life of her, Carolina can’t understand his pairing of mods, but she does sort of envy them. The biomedical scanner is genius. The Director has clearly given it to him in a defensive manner. To monitor the team. Carolina can already see a number of ways to run it. Find weaknesses in enemy forces. Know whether you should spend your time taking out the tired man before you that doesn’t hit as hard or turn your attention to the fresh combatant that may be stronger. Read enemy shield levels, check even their equipment if you modify the parameters of the program a bit. The EMP? Well, that’s just a stupid application of disastrous tech if something damages the shielding in their armor. Carolina just doesn’t understand why that is in their arsenal at all. 

The things her father gives her? 

The ability to blend into the background. Isn’t that what she did all of her life, in the shadow of her mother? Did he ever really see her the way he should have? Could he respect her as a woman in her own right, for the things she achieved? Had he even realized she was in the program before the first time they had met for a briefing? She’d known about him, been hyper aware of his voice and his presence and the back facing her like it always did. Again, she thinks as she reads the specs on her mod. Again he’s melting her into the background despite what she’s achieved. Just wait until he can see what she does with it, though. 

But the speed mod, that’s the real slap in the face. When Carolina learns of it she… Yes, she envies everything else, but this? She’s fast enough. She’s always been fast enough. Strove for it. Pushed her body harder and harder, faster and faster. Does he think she’s going to be her mother? Is this his way of protecting her? Giving her a way to get away quickly from the danger, and then expect her to melt into the shadows with the other mod? No. She won’t be her mother. Carolina is always going to be fast enough. The mod can’t possibly push her harder than she pushes herself. She’s not going to die to let a few more people get onto a transport, or because she wasn’t good enough to cover her team and so she runs and hides. She won’t fail. 

Carolina will not be her mother. She’ll be better, and she won’t need his fucking mods to prove it. 

Carolina is a survivor.

* * * * * *

It’s not enough. 

She’s not enough. 

Not fast enough. Never has been, never will be. No application of her mods, no strength, no fighting skill is enough. Back then she didn’t see Maine approaching her on the cliff until it was too late. Before that she hadn’t been fast enough to stop Texas from bringing the MOI down around them. Not fast enough to save York from Texas’s corruption. Not fast enough to keep Connie from turning away from them or from dying or the Insurrectionist leader from escaping. Not fast enough to keep Maine from getting shot, multiple times, in the throat. Not fast enough to be in the right place to have that first sparring session against Texas and thus spare York the loss of his eye. 

Not fast enough, never fast enough. 

It’s a point that doesn’t really sink in until now. Doesn’t sink in until she’s here, on this relatively boring island in what is clearly meant to be some sort of sinister base, staring at the blackened char of stone and little else. 

Part of her says go forward. Says search. Find something, anything, that proves it isn’t true. Because it can’t be true. Not York. Not here. Not now. 

So long tapped into the PFL comm channels, so long monitoring in hopes of finding one of them that wasn’t Maine or Texas so she can save them. Help them. Lead them. Protect them from the danger she hadn’t been able to outrun despite how fast her father made sure she could go. And now her she was, at least a day too late because she just didn’t have the resources. Her body is screaming in pain from the time she’s clocked on her mod, pushing it and herself to limits she hadn’t known existed. All in hopes to be here in time and save… 

Save what? York? He’s not here. He’ll never be here again. 

Her fingers stroke over the blackened char. Once his body rested here. Once he was alive in this place, in this space, alive and breathing and if she’d only been faster, if only she’d been… 

No time to waste like this. The recovery beacon for York had come in so shortly before another had gone off. Already she’s too late for a man she could, should have loved. A man she could have saved if only she’d been fast enough to realize how wrong she was. Now all she can do is try and not let him down. Not fail again.

They’re her team and she has to do this. Has to save them from their betrayed beliefs, and her own failure. 

Carolina allows herself only a few minutes to grind down a few bites of an MRE and some of her water before she’s ready to move again. Then she stops, hesitates. Maybe she can’t let herself search, can’t let herself do this and wait here and die with him because others need her. But…

But it only takes a few seconds to retrieve the flask from a storage compartment on her armor and pour the last few swallows she’s been saving for something worth celebrating out on the char marks. She owes York that much. 

She owes him being fast enough to save the next one too. 

This time she’s… she’s going to make it. Has to.

* * * * * *

This time the pieces aren’t all blown away. The stone are uneven below her, and Carolina struggles over them. Her body is screaming in fatigue, ready to collapse. That doesn’t mean she can stop. 

The char marks and the small, scattered pieces of purple tell her… 

It doesn’t make sense, she thinks as she sits there for a while, staring at the newest mark of her failure. These were people she was responsible for, and more than that, they were the best. Better than the best. She can understand how someone could catch York off guard after all of these years. Can even understand Delta failing York, or maybe going rampant a bit early, or demanding to be pulled, or… Hell, she doesn’t know. 

But North? 

York may prefer to be lucky over good, but Carolina has always found that it’s North who has all the luck. It’s hard to explain, but the man just… Her fingers brush over the char marks once again, and she shudders at the sight. What can be after them, what hunts Freelancers and is strong enough to defeat North with his bubble shield? 

Part of her wants to say South. Hell, most of her wants to say South, but that really isn’t giving the woman the credit she deserves. No matter how it ended, Carolina saw them at the start. No one could hide the love and devotion the twins have for each other. Had for each other she guesses. Have to change the tenses now. Never forget. Another burden, another screaming voice in her head that says she failed to be there, failed to do what she should. 

Another bit of proof that she’s not fast enough. 

When she finds the deep boot prints of an almost impossible size a bit away, the answer comes. 

Even they can’t outrun the demon out of her own past. The only hope, Carolina thinks, is that she gets there first.

She sits there. It could be hours. It could be years. It’s so hard to tell anymore. It’s like she’s drowning in the limitless potential of the time distortion unit. Of course that’s impossible. Wyoming never actually got it working back in the program. Or so they all heard. Who knows with him and Gamma. Or maybe knew. His beacon went off a long time back, and then… Then she hadn’t been able to move. Same with Florida’s. They…

They didn’t feel like family, like the people she’s letting down now. Never could, never would. Wyoming had never treated the rest of them like a team. Wyoming had hurt York. Wyoming hadn’t… Maybe he hadn’t been hurt like she’d been told. Was she too slow to get that when York told her? 

Her fist hits the ground in frustration. And seconds later (or an eternity, it’s hard to tell these days) another beacon goes off. 

This time, she tells herself as she gets to her feet, she’ll be fast enough. Has to be. 

* * * * * *

Again she’s too slow, but this time, not by much. Carolina shows up at the abandoned military structure just in time to see the beast out of her past. He stands over Washington, Wash, their precious recruit, hand going down for his armor. 

When he sees her, when Maine… 

It’s not Maine, that much is obvious. She doesn’t know how she knows, she just does. This creature, the thing at the top of the cliff that tore her mind apart and flung her to her death? Not Maine. But this sees her as prey. Like it did York. Like it did North. And here is Wash, almost his next victim. 

It snarls at her and Carolina can’t help her reaction. The fear is still there, as is the instinct. Instead of running toward, she starts to back pedal. Turns. Runs. 

The mods are too wound down. They need a minute to recharge. 

Terrified, Carolina ducks behind cover and turns on the camo unit, melts into the background and the shadows and oblivion. 

In the end, though, she thinks the only thing that saves her is the incoming Pelicans. No doubt there for Wash. It scares the monster off, just long enough for the speed mod to spin back up. 

She runs like there’s no tomorrow. If she’s caught, there isn’t.

* * * * * *

Carolina thinks it’s been a year since the last time one went off. She hates herself for the fact that she never went for Wash, but she knows the beast that stalks her. Has stalked her. She can still feel it on her trail in every waking moment. If the only way to keep her team safe is to lure it away, then maybe her speed mods will be enough. Maybe the power her father gave her to run and hide will be all she needs to save them. 

Part of her wonders if this was what her mother had felt like in the end. Had she measured out the lives of her teammates in quanta of how far she could run, how fast she could go while still presenting a viable target? Did she hide and weep and curse how weak she ultimately was? 

When the signal comes she gets up and goes. Because clearly somewhere she’s failed again. Failed to keep her team safe. Not that she knows where. The beast could have been on her hours ago. Or maybe not even for months. Maybe he was never even after her trail. 

The abandoned base reminds her of the last one. Except this time instead of luring the beast away, it’s already gone. Instead she finds the mangled and horrifying remains of another person. It’s the height, the color, and the sinking feeling gut that tells her what she has feared. South lays before her, and the readings on Carolina’s helmet tells her that, at best guess, she’s only an hour too late. 

And there’s another beacon. 

Body screaming for rest, she runs. 

* * * * * *

When she shows up at the energy plant it’s abandoned. As she walks among it in camo she finds the place as dead as her friends. She’s a ghost walking amongst ghosts. There are so many signs of the fight, a fight she might have joined if only she hadn’t gotten lost on the way here. Comm beacons only told you direction, and this one had been mangled and blanked out in a lot of ways. The best she could do was run until she saw a likely place. 

The beast has been here. He’s… It’s long gone. 

There are no bodies this time. 

Given the fact that her count says only Wash and the monster itself are left… well, she’s not sure whether to be relieved or pained. 

Carolina finds a small airvent to hide in. Her body is so weak, so tired. It needs to stop. The running needs to end. Camo unit active she curls up as small as she can and closes her eyes. Maybe… maybe she can just stop. Maybe she can just stop running. 

* * * * * *

The beacon jars her awake. 

Washington, at Command. 

There’s no way this plays out that she gets there in time. Makes it in time to save his life. 

A point only reinforced moments later when it cuts out abruptly. 

Now the only one she has to run for is herself. 

* * * * * *

It’s two years before Maine’s goes off again, at a place she never wants to see again. 

Two years she doesn’t remember, spent she doesn’t even really remember how. Not in any way that was fulfilling. Not even superficially. 

Carolina knows it doesn’t matter. She isn’t fast enough, and never will be. Still, she goes anyway. This, at least, she has to see. 

What she finds is an icy ruin, the icy ruin. It’s a military installation of some sort now. Not that it matters. There isn’t anything or anyone of value here. Men and women in UNSC armor mill around, and her camo lets her move among them with little problems. They’ve trampled the ground so much that no one will ever see a few more footsteps. 

Slowly Carolina walks to the edge, closer now than she remembers. Maybe the memory of her near death distorted things in some manner.

She’s silent as she listens. Maine gone, fallen over the side and dead. Tex’s body broken and gone. And only one bit of gossip on anyone’s lips. 

Red and Blue ‘fake soldiers’ responsible for it all. Rumors that they killed Wash as well…

At least she has something new to run toward now, Carolina thinks. 

Maybe her speed isn’t meant for saving. 

No. 

It was always the tool of her father’s revenge on the world. She was his tool. And now? Now she will be his downfall.


End file.
